Is Akhenaton the founder of monotheism?

Dear John and Speel-yi,
your "duel" is interesting, but went so much off topic that it would be really convenient if you could take it to somewhere else. Thanks.------------------
Life has no meaning but itself.

With all respect, I explained, in Post #70 how the discussion is relevant the topic. It centers around Speel-yi's criticism of the Ahkenaton/monotheism/judaism link. If you notice Speel-yi's response to that post, he brushed aside more than 75% of my reponse-- including the part most relevant to the discussion.I realize that the debate has gone far afield, and I should ignore Speel-yi's irrelevant tangents, but I don't. It's a weakness. ------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com[This message has been edited by John, 09-28-2003]

I'm not sure on how I should respond to being called Capt. Literal.Let me distill this for you, the life expectancy for foragers is 26, then you have horticulturalist (gardeners) at 19, the we get to pre-dynastic Egypt where it is 19 as well (see link)Age at death, Naga ed-Deirand then we get to Old Kingdom where it drops to 17.egyptSo by this time, life expectancy has dropped 9 years, hmmmm....not an evolutionarily sound strategy from the looks of it considering most of the problem is the dismal infant mortality rate. Two things you can then expect to happen, natural selection will select for the best genotype and the people in a culture will learn how to best deal with the problems it faces. Religious codes would be an excellent vehicle for this. (Balinese water temples are a great example of this.) In a similar envirinment, you could expect a similar religious code.From the link, we have life expectancy rising in the New Kingdom to 29 years of age. Presently, we have a life expectancy of 77 in the U.S. and the highest one we have is of 84 for Japanese women, but before you get there, you have to pass through a lower life expectancy, (as an aside, it was only 47 by 1900.) Humans went from an adaptive peak to one where the human race was not adapted. Evolution did not plan this out, in fact it plans very little. We did not initially trade free time for a longer life.John, I think the word you are thinking of is Paternalistic and that has a different connotation from patriarchal. Women in primative societies had status and a fair amount of autonomy, but they did not control things.------------------
Bringer of fire, trickster, teacher.[This message has been edited by Speel-yi, 09-29-2003]

Well Capt.,Let me distill it for you. For two posts now you haven't touched the topic-- not even a little-- and you've misread, misinterpretted and, god forbid, misrepresented what I have said. I could list the fallacies-- the list is longer than I generally generate when watching political speeches-- but this is getting tedious. Do you have some kind of illness that might explain this? Or perhaps English isn't your first language? There must be an explaination.In the meantime... ------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com[This message has been edited by John, 09-29-2003]

So what makes you think I should respond to everything you have to say?Your posts seem to have incorrect beliefs and I just addressed one of them and in doing so I've only brought the discussion back to ground zero.We tend to speak of cultures as higher and lower implying that they procede along arbitrary lines of progress towards some mythical goal. The central point to this discussion is that a belief that started from a "higher" was transmitted to a "lower" one. The grading of cultures from lower to higher is a value judgement, but one that is implied frequently in many things people have to say about the ancient world. The idea that people in higher cultures had people that were more capable of reason than people living in lower cultures is pervasive. People require less intellect to survive in an agricultural context than a foraging one. The only people that had time in an agricultural society to think about religion were elites since they were the ones that had time and training about such things.There are several lines of reasoning that I think could be considered in the debate.One is that the idea of monotheism is probably not a unique one. The second is that the structure of Mosaic Law is more of a bottom up type of design than what you would expect coming from an agricultural society. Then one thing we have not brought up is that Judaism relies on a written language that is not related to the written language of the Egyptians...the Demotic shorthand script of the Hieroglyphs.Mosiac Law forbids eating of shellfish and there is good reason to believe that this is very adaptive in that shellfish often carry toxins, (see: Mollusks And Man - A Medical Perspective - Part Two ) this food taboo is not unique to Jewish people at all, but it does seem to be somewhat unique to written codes.This looks very much like it was either divinely inspired or that it is derived from thousands of years of trial and error from a non-agricultural population that did not rely heavily on grassy monocots for subsistence. The only prohibition involves the lack of leavening during Passover. Hence, it appears to be derived from a possibly pastoral tradition or possibly a foraging tradition and not an agricultural one.------------------
Bringer of fire, trickster, teacher.

But you failed to provide any evidence for that. Zoroastrism may be "regarded" a monotheism, but BY DEFINITION it is not, because two gods are simply not one (and lesser gods or "demi gods" are also gods, after all). So - can you mention any other MONOTHEISTIC religion or cult? And I mean really monotheistic - with only ONE GOD (not spirit, universal force etc.) and no lesser gods or demi-gods?------------------
Life has no meaning but itself.

By that standard does even the religion of Akhenaton measure up to the constraints that you have set here?I do beg to differ on the Zoroastrian Religion not being monotheistic, I'd have to break out my old 486 to get my notes on it, but I did do a smallish ethnograph on it 7 years ago.Check out this link:
http://www.zoroastrian.org/english/other/faq.htm

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Q: Is it true that Zoroastrians believe in two gods — one God of Good and the other God of Evil?

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A: No. Zarathushtra is the first person who realized and firmly believed in Monotheism. His Monotheism is unique. There is one God, the continuous Creator, Maintainer, and Promoter of the Universe. Zarathushtra named his God Mazd, meaning Super Intellect, Supreme Wisdom. Since God is Essence, Being, he retained Ahura for the Supreme Being. Later the two components were combined as Ahura Mazda, freely translated as Wise God or Wise Lord.

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You might also wish to consider that the discourse in a culture about their faith will be what we term heteroglossic in that there are many voices within a culture that may have different perspectives on an issue. In a culture there may be no one single voice that describes the one single view that all individuals have about spirituality.------------------
Bringer of fire, trickster, teacher.

No. Because Atonism was monotheism in embryonal form. But Atonism had the main and crucial feature of monotheism - denial and hostility towards other gods/cults/religions.And I know that today Zoroastrism si often regarded as monotheism. According to my opinion this is just "modern" approach highly influenced by Judeo/Christian/Islamic monotheism. I regard quote in my post #68 in this thread as sufficient proof that Zoroastrians resented idea of single god.
I also do not know whether there is any teaching of Zarathustra against other gods/cults/religions. If you know about it, I would highly appreciate any possible information.
Without hostility against other gods/cults/religions no religion can remain monotheistic (I already explained why, but just shortly - people have different needs, feelings, ideas, so unless there is something to prevent them to, they would tend to worship other gods too).------------------
Life has no meaning but itself.

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So what makes you think I should respond to everything you have to say?

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Well... not responding to salient points-- especially those related to the thread's topic-- make you seem a bit cagey? Evasive? Deceptive? For example, claiming as support for your position that you do 'fieldwork' but dropping the subject without comment when called to verify the claim.

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Your posts seem to have incorrect beliefs...

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I can't decide whether you misread or spin what you read, but you barely even respond what is posted, favoring instead your own weird distortions, much less correct wrongs. Every time you post it becomes more clear that you have no idea what you are talking about. You argue that agriculture isn't an 'evolutionarily' valid strategy, but confuse 'average lifespan' with reproductive success-- the latter, not the former, being the relevant variable.

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We tend to speak of cultures as higher and lower implying that they procede along arbitrary lines of progress towards some mythical goal.

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Please stop projecting. This is social Darwinism and it has been dead for a hundred years. Are your textbooks that old?

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People require less intellect to survive in an agricultural context than a foraging one.

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I don't know that this is true. It looks like more wishful thinking. Survival in a simple agricultural environment would likely take about as much intelligence as foraging. Survival in more complicated cultures certainly requires more training-- more training does not mean more intelligence.

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The only people that had time in an agricultural society to think about religion were elites since they were the ones that had time and training about such things.

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You are confusing agrarian cultures with more complicated cultures. Doing so blurs too many lines.

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One is that the idea of monotheism is probably not a unique one.

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... which you have supported only by redefining 'monotheism' and 'polytheism' to suit your ends. Monotheism, even if not unique, does appear to be a very rare thing.

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The second is that the structure of Mosaic Law is more of a bottom up type of design than what you would expect coming from an agricultural society.

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The Mosaic law is not unique. A bottom up design is exactly what I'd expect from a agricultural society-- a system of codes cobbled together over time and made up ad hoc as the need arose.

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Then one thing we have not brought up is that Judaism relies on a written language that is not related to the written language of the Egyptians...the Demotic shorthand script of the Hieroglyphs.

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Demotic script did not show up on the scene until about 660 BCE-- much too late to be relevant. Judaism was already well established. Heiratic script preceeded the demotic and fits within the time frame. Heiratic resembles the scripts of numerous semitic languages.Ahem... [qs]Numerous older tablets were found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example Ancient Egyptian. It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to the hieroglyphs of the Egyptian writing. Hebrew language - WikipediaSo, in fact, the language isn't a problem in itself. The problem is going to be the time frame.

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Mosiac Law forbids eating of shellfish and there is good reason to believe that this is very adaptive in that shellfish often carry toxins, (see: Mollusks And Man - A Medical Perspective - Part Two ) this food taboo is not unique to Jewish people at all, but it does seem to be somewhat unique to written codes.

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You neglect to mention that our ancestors have been eating shellfish for 300,000 years, and archeaologists find mountains of shells at some sites. Citing the 'advantages' of not eating shellfish simply makes no sense. Shellfish looks to me like an idealogical issue. Its purpose was to seperate the Isrealites from everyone else. PREHISTORIC SHELLFISH GATHERING By the way, your source is pushing the ridiculous trichinosis/swine link. It doesn't fill me with confidence in his ability.

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This looks very much like it was either divinely inspired or that it is derived from thousands of years of trial and error from a non-agricultural population that did not rely heavily on grassy monocots for subsistence.

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Right... either/or. Well, that settles it.

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The only prohibition involves the lack of leavening during Passover.

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What is that sentence doing in this paragraph? Hell, what is it doing in this discussion?

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Hence, it appears to be derived from a possibly pastoral tradition or possibly a foraging tradition and not an agricultural one.

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Derived from a foraging tradition? As all cultures unltimately are? No kidding?------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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No. Because Atonism was monotheism in embryonal form. But Atonism had the main and crucial feature of monotheism - denial and hostility towards other gods/cults/religions.

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We really don't know much about the religion since it lasted only a decade and what we do know is what was left behind by its opponents. The god set up was one already borrowed from the existing pantheon.Zoroastrianism was the state religion of the Persians and they were extremely tolerant. They also helped rebuild the Jewish Temple and repatriated them to their land. It is at this time period that they came to be known as Jews after the surviving tribe of Judah.When Islam expanded, they invaded Persia and forced the Persians to adopt Islam, there were a few that resisted and they eventually fled to the Indian state of Gujarat where they were given asylum on the condition that they would not proselytize their religion. I happen to think that they are influenced by Indian culture more than Christian culture. They do get along fairly well with their fellow Aryans and more or less have their own caste system. If a Parsi marries a non-Parsi, their offspring will not be regarded as Parsi. This has given women a great deal of power in the society as men will bend over backwards to please a Parsi woman in order to mary one. The women tend to have feminist ideals and may lead the way in Indian feminism.Indira Ghandi married a Parsi/Zoroastrian. Much of their value system is based on their pastoral past from the Iranian steppes as they have sacred bulls that produce sacred Nirang for some of their ceremonies. They seem to love big dogs. The remnant of 17,000 Zoroastrians in Iran are discriminated against since they practice a religion that is not "of the Book" like Christianity or Judaism. They are referred to as Gabrs and killing one was/is not a crime. In India, they became very wealthy during the colonial period as they could take out loans and they rose in economic status.If you want to know more, email them and they are fairly responsive to inquiries.

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I can't decide whether you misread or spin what you read, but you barely even respond what is posted, favoring instead your own weird distortions, much less correct wrongs. Every time you post it becomes more clear that you have no idea what you are talking about. You argue that agriculture isn't an 'evolutionarily' valid strategy, but confuse 'average lifespan' with reproductive success-- the latter, not the former, being the relevant variable.

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A shorter lifespan for a woman means she has a decreased chance for producing adult children unless she decrease the interbirth interval from 4 years to 2 or so.

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Please stop projecting. This is social Darwinism and it has been dead for a hundred years. Are your textbooks that old?

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No it is not, it is quite alive and many textbooks have incorrect information about human evolution and this in turn has an effect on social policy. Ever heard of the term "developing country?" What are they supposed to develop into?

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I don't know that this is true. It looks like more wishful thinking. Survival in a simple agricultural environment would likely take about as much intelligence as foraging. Survival in more complicated cultures certainly requires more training-- more training does not mean more intelligence.

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It doesn't take much training to do menial tasks associated with agriculture. The division of labor meant that you learned one task and did not learn about anything else.It does not take much training to survive in America, most people are completely ignorant of anything except what they need to know.The skeletal record shows a great deal of physical stress and malnutrition. Porotic hyperostosis is very evident in many skulls from agricultural societies and it is still evident in in human skulls from India.

Once again you have managed to post a reply and not touch the topic at all. What is the connection to Akhenaton? Looks to me like you are responding to minor points, even to side comments, rather than defending your position. This qualifies as evasive. And that implies that you cannot defend your position.Please review my post and respond to the issues related to Akhenaton. Those points start where I quote you saying... ... and continue to the end of the post.As for the agriculture issue, look for a new thread.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

The "agriculture issue" simply points out a lack of linkage to the two cultures. If you get a code of conduct from one culture that forbids things like worship of other gods and then somehow fails to mention some others things central to the cultures in question; it calls into question the linkage between the two cultures in the first place.I did fail to mention the prohibition for fallowing the land every 7th year. This wouldn't be needed for a culture that had a river flooding the land each year and renewing the soil in that way. Fallowing the land would be a dryland farming technique that would not originate in a river valley, it would be found in an environment that relied on seasonal rain to maintain moisture in the soils. What would be the origin of that behavior?Those silly Jews won't eat shellfish either, it's just a way to separate themselves from everyone else. Right. I know specifically about at least one other set of cultures that have the same taboo and they've been around for about 2000 years now. But in another corner of the globe, there is a taboo about shellfish. Check the link:http://ejeafche.uvigo.es(Note: link does not appear to work, so click on that and then paste the following,
/2(4)2003/007242003F.htm )I don't eat shellfish myself and am doing just fine without it. And no, Portugul is not the area of interest for me.Raha states:

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But you failed to provide any evidence for that. Zoroastrism may be "regarded" a monotheism, but BY DEFINITION it is not, because two gods are simply not one (and lesser gods or "demi gods" are also gods, after all). So - can you mention any other MONOTHEISTIC religion or cult? And I mean really monotheistic - with only ONE GOD (not spirit, universal force etc.) and no lesser gods or demi-gods?

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The exclusion of a spiritual god would exclude Judaism, Islam and Christianity as well. You ask for proof, I can't really give you proof no more than I could give you proof whether there is God or not in the first place. I can give you evidence that suggests something, but proof is another matter entirely.------------------
Bringer of fire, trickster, teacher.[This message has been edited by Speel-yi, 10-01-2003][This message has been edited by Speel-yi, 10-01-2003][This message has been edited by Speel-yi, 10-01-2003]

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The "agriculture issue" simply points out a lack of linkage to the two cultures.

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Spell this out. You aren't making any sense. Agriculture in mesopotamia began thousands of years before Akhenaton. Egypt was long past being a foraging society, and so was everyone else in the region. Between Sumer, Babylon and Egypt hardly anything would have been pristine. We are only talking about 1400 BC or so. What does the rise of agriculture have to do with anything?

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I did fail to mention the prohibition for fallowing the land every 7th year.

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Here again you try to trumpet the Mosaic code, presumably to prove that it is somehow unique and thus neither it nor its people could have connections to Egypt. You also failed to mention that most agricultural regions need the land to be left fallow once every two or three years, not once every seven. You also failed to mention that the area had been saturated with agriculture for thousands of years, and this fit of knowledge would not have been hard to get. You have also highlighted a bit of agriculture embedded in Judaism. Why is this important? You've based your argument, or part of it, on showing that... Well, one of those 'other things' you mention appears to be agriculture. And look-ie! It isn't missing after all.

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Fallowing the land would be a dryland farming technique that would not originate in a river valley, it would be found in an environment that relied on seasonal rain to maintain moisture in the soils.

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Not all of Egypt's farmland was in the Nile flood plain. Much of it, the red land, required irrigation and techniques like allowing the land to lay fallow. You also apparently don't know why land is left fallow. It has nothing to do with water content. The reason land is left fallow is to allow depleted nutrients to be replinished.

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Those silly Jews won't eat shellfish either, it's just a way to separate themselves from everyone else. Right.

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You brought up shellfish to trumpet the Mosaic code. Apparently, not eating shellfish is great wisdom. This demonstrates the unnatural wisdom of the writers of the OT, and shows how they didn't descend from Akhenaton's followers. Forgive the guessing but as you refuse to clearly make your case, I have to try to do it for you.Humans all over the world have been eating shellfish for thousands of years. If eating shellfish were a terrible thing, it would not be so common and it would not have lasted as long as it has. Eating shellfish is not that dangerous. Too many coastal peoples depend upon them, and have for much too long. There must be another reason for the taboo. That reason is cultural cohesion-- yet another concept with which you appear unfamiliar. The potential for illness is not the only reason for taboos. In the case of the Israelites, a prohibition against shellfish would be a pretty benign way to bind a group together. They were a band of herders in the bloody desert. Shellfish aren't going to be all that abundant. Walk a hundred miles for mussels? That would be wasteful unless they were the only source of food. And that would be another option for tracing the source of the taboo-- simple caloric economics.

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I know specifically about at least one other set of cultures that have the same taboo and they've been around for about 2000 years now.

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Utterly and completely irrelevant.

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I don't eat shellfish myself and am doing just fine without it.

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You can't possibly imagine that this matters?

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The exclusion of a spiritual god would exclude Judaism, Islam and Christianity as well.

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... personified spiritual force as opposed to a wierd intangible like the tao. You are an evasive one.

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You ask for proof, I can't really give you proof no more than I could give you proof whether there is God or not in the first place. I can give you evidence that suggests something, but proof is another matter entirely.

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Are you incapable of giving a straight answer? You've now switched to 'I can't give a proof of God.' All you need do is provide a culture which proposes a single God.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Spell this out. You aren't making any sense. Agriculture in mesopotamia began thousands of years before Akhenaton. Egypt was long past being a foraging society, and so was everyone else in the region. Between Sumer, Babylon and Egypt hardly anything would have been pristine. We are only talking about 1400 BC or so. What does the rise of agriculture have to do with anything?

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They are much different environments, you would expect the codes to be different. Agriculture started out in The Levant with the Natufians, not in Mesopotamia. As I've said, the Hebrews appear to have a culture more reliant on pastoralism and the code is consistant with this.

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Not all of Egypt's farmland was in the Nile flood plain. Much of it, the red land, required irrigation and techniques like allowing the land to lay fallow. You also apparently don't know why land is left fallow. It has nothing to do with water content. The reason land is left fallow is to allow depleted nutrients to be replinished.

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How do these nutrients get replenished? Spontaneous generation? Cow Poop? River silt? Water is the limiting nutrient in most of the cases anyway.As for shellfish, you are wrong about their safety. Eating something that is safe most of the time is not good enough when a trip to the hospital is not an option. The R rule in Portugal works there but in the hot climate near the Hebrews, it would not be an option. Israel is not a large tract of land either, it is much less than 100 miles from any point in it to the sea.

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I know specifically about at least one other set of cultures that have the same taboo and they've been around for about 2000 years now.

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Utterly and completely irrelevant.

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An example of thousands of years of trial and error succeeding somewhere else.

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personified spiritual force as opposed to a wierd intangible like the tao. You are an evasive one.

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I've seen this tactic before where any evidence presented is declared non-evidence since it doesn't support the claim someone want to believe. It's like a shaggy dog tale. I've presented cases that I think are fairly close to the definition.What makes anyone think that a belief system would go from a complex pantheon to a less complex monotheism? I think people would be bothered if someone were to say that life started out as a multicellular organism and then went through some retrograde evolution into single celled organisms. We see societies become more complex and then somehow expect the belief systems to go through a retrograde evolution and end up being monotheistic after starting out with complex polytheisms.Exerpted from a Muskogean writing:Some say this Power is One Above, symbolically called the Master of Breath, Creator, Ruler and Source. Others say that Power is not the Creator but merely an outflow from Creator who is beyond comprehension but not acceptance. There are also those who just say...Power is! Regardless of which view is held, Power is paramount to the people of Pine Arbor. Power is the heart of things Muskogee.That to me sounds a hell of a lot like the Allah of the Muslims and the Yahweh of the Jews. Neither of these cultures have anything like the anthropomorphic God that is often portrayed in pop culture.------------------
Bringer of fire, trickster, teacher.